Polycarbonate resins are broadly used in various fields due to good mechanical and thermal properties thereof. Particularly, polycarbonate resins have good properties in terms of transparency, hygienic properties, rigidity, and heat resistance, and are broadly used as materials for medical supplies for medical devices, surgical instruments, and the like. Such medical products are required to be completely sterilized, and examples of such sterilization methods include contact treatment with sterilized gas such as ethylene oxide, heat treatment in an autoclave, ionizing radiation treatment with gamma radiation, electron beams and X-rays, and the like. Among these methods, contact treatment with ethylene oxide is undesirable due to toxicity and instability of ethylene oxide, and environmental problems caused by waste disposal. In addition, heat treatment in the autoclave can cause deterioration of the polycarbonate resin during treatment at high temperature and requires high energy costs and a drying process due to moisture remaining on a treated part. Therefore, sterilization treatment by irradiation with ionizing radiation, which can be performed at low temperature and is relatively economical, is typically used in the art.
Generally, polycarbonate resins suffer from yellowing and deterioration in physical properties when irradiated with ionizing radiation. To overcome these problems, there have been proposed a method of blending a polycarbonate resin with other polymers, a method of adding various additives to a polycarbonate resin, and a method of copolymerizing a polycarbonate resin. However, such methods have failed to completely solve the problems such as yellowing and deterioration in physical properties.
Therefore, there is a need for a polycarbonate resin composition which allows liquid level or color of contents such as chemicals or blood in a molded article to be easily distinguished and exhibits good properties in terms of impact resistance and stiffness even after being irradiated with ionizing radiation.
The background technique of the present invention is disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2012-0077665.